VIJAYAWADA: ‘Cashless’ ATMs at several places in Vijayawada and other cities in the State proved to be a killjoy for people celebrating Sankranti. Currency crisis seems to have returned to haunt people with ‘No Cash’ signs greeting them at ATMs. Strangely, even banks themselves ran out of cash for the past couple of days.
Bank officials attributed currency shortage to insufficient flow of deposits from public. This was because of the three-day Sankranti holidays.
“As the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill has created some confusion among people during the last couple of months many depositors started withdrawing their money. We didn’t expect that Vijayawada city would be hit by FRDI row. Social media too created panic prompting people to withdraw money from banks. Whatever cash was loaded into ATMs quickly vanished because of a huge scramble for money for festival expenses. We are doing our best to put sufficient cash in the ATM’s.” said V Mohan, branch manager, SBI, Prajasakthi Nagar.
“I have been running from ATM to ATM to withdraw some cash for the festival needs. But almost every ATM in the city is dry,” said N Madhubabu, a resident of Vijayawada. “As even the banks were closed for festival holidays, I was left with no option but to borrow some cash.”
“I came to the ATM to withdraw money for holiday expenses. But the ATM has no cash and the banks are least bothered to refill them. I have gone to almost 6 to 7 ATM’s without success.” said B Sudha, a student of CCE.